Leaders Are Learners!

Experience (and a lot of it) is how you gain the knowledge you need to set you apart from the crowd. It’s essential to working your way up or leading your own company or achieving your personal vision. But . . . but there are shortcuts to earning this level of experience. One of them is proving yourself worthy of learning opportunities. Here are some tips for doing so:

Say yes!

People (managers, professors, entrepreneurs, coworkers, teammates) are always looking for help. You can either be the person who looks at the ground when somebody is looking for help with a new project or you can be the one who says, “I’ll do it!”

Don’t be afraid to ask.

The type of people you have the most to learn from are likely to get great satisfaction from helping others and sharing what they’ve learned. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or to ask questions.

Take it on the chin.

In order to learn from the best, the best have to be willing to teach you. Much of the “teaching” is going to come in the form of constructive feedback—personal feedback on things that you do well and probably even more on things you don’t do well or knowledge that you don’t have. The right mindset (open and accepting) makes it easy for your more experienced colleague to give it to you straight.

Now, go learn something!

Mark Hopkins earned engineering degrees from Cornell and Stanford and then spent the next twenty-five years deciphering the factors that make some people prosperous, successful and happy After building a leadership career with companies like Hewlett Packard and Emerson Electric, Hopkins founded Peak Industries, a medical device contract manufacturer, which he grew to $75 million and later sold to Delphi. He then founded Crescendo Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Catalyst, a private foundation supporting Colorado-based nonprofits and micro-lending in the developing world. He is the author of Shortcut to Prosperity: 10 Entrepreneurial Habits and a Roadmap For An Exceptional Career. www.shortcuttoprosperity.com